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Winning the Water War
Ireland is famous for being a place where you can
get all four seasons in the passing of one day. The predominant
season here is the rainy season which extends through spring, summer,
autumn and winter . The one thing we are not short of on this island
is water. But then, since when did our 'leaders' or the authorities
let the facts get in the way of further exploitation. Over the last
three years in Dublin a battle has raged between the councils, trying
to implement a charge for the supply of water and the people opposed
to this policy. This is the story of the campaign against the
imposition of this double tax.
When the domestic rates were abolished in 1977 following the
general election an increase took place in income tax and Value Added
Tax. The money made from these increases was to be used to fund the
local authorities, who had previously relied on the domestic rates
for their funding. Central government was to pay a rate support grant
to Local Authorities. This rate support grant increased until 1983
when the then Fine Gael and Labour government decided to cut this
grant and brought in legislation to allow the councils to levy
service charges.
So though people were effectively paying more taxes, less of this
money made its way to local councils, so they were asked to pay more
money in the guise of 'service charges'. Eighty seven per cent of all
the tax paid in this country is by the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) worker.
This is a massive amount of money especially when contrasted to the
fact that many multi-national companies are attracted to this country
for exactly the opposite reasons, because they have to pay relatively
small amounts of tax. Put plain and simply the beleaguered tax-payer
in Ireland has been getting screwed not once but twice. This is what
made this campaign so important.
The Son of Rates
In the 1980's resistance in Dublin led to the scrapping of the
first attempt to introduce a water tax in Dublin. Other successful
campaigns took place in Limerick and Waterford. In Waterford also,
around the Paddy Browne Road a gang of contractors who were cutting
off non-payers were held hostage by residents and Waterford Glass
workers.
In other counties the charges continued and by 1993 the amount
expected to be paid by a household varied from one county to another.
The service charge for Kilkenny was £70 per annum plus extra
money for refuse collection while in the County of Cavan you had to
pay £180 to the local council. In 1995 the service charges
continued to rise with Mayo commanding an annual charge of between
£205 and £235.
The Water-Charge is Born
The writing was on the wall that a new charge was about to be
levied on the people of Dublin when on January 1st 1994 Dublin County
was divided into three new County Council areas. Fingal, South
Dublin, and Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown were created and they all had to
strike a rate which they would then be charged to each household for
the water service. The existence of three new areas made it easier to
administer the charge on each household.
All the councillors had been elected on the basis that they
opposed this charge. In 1985 the Fianna Fáil manifesto for the
local elections stated "Fianna Fáil are totally opposed to the
new system of local charges and on return to office will abolish
these charges and repeal the legislation under which they are imposed
." However when the time came to show their opposition they stalled
before striking a rate. In South County it was £70, in Fingal it
was £85, in Dun Laoighaire/Rathdown it varied from £50 to
£93.
The sorry excuse that arose on the occasion of all these
politicians proving themselves to be liars was that they were forced
to strike a water charge rate or else the government would dissolve
the council. Councillor Don Tipping of Democratic Left later wrote
his excuse in the Tallaght Echo "We (Democratic Left) faced down a
threat to abolish the council in 1994 by Fíanna Faíl
Minister Smith, who insisted that we must have the water charges."
The way Mr Tipping and his fellow councillors 'faced down' this
threat was to concede totally to the government wishes. It is on such
weak reasons that politicians' promises are broken. This whole
episode also speaks volumes about how our 'democracy' works. The
government pushes for Water Charges and the councillors bluster but
fail to oppose it in any meaningful way. Instead they set the charge
and set about the business of collecting it. In just a short space of
time nearly all the elected councillors went from opposing water
charges to imposing water charges.
Opposition blooms
In the spring 1994 issue of Workers Solidarity (paper of the
Workers Solidarity Movement) Gregor Kerr wrote "Householders and
residents in Dublin should immediately prepare to resist these
charges. If nobody pays, they will be impossible to collect." Over
the summer of 1994 political opposition to these water charges was
drummed up as many public meetings were held all over the county.
Members of Militant Labour (now known as the Socialist Party) and the
Workers Solidarity Movement and many non-aligned activists worked at
leafleting information about the forthcoming charge. We showed what
had happened when similar charges were imposed in the other cities,
towns and county areas. The water charges had soon developed into a
service charge and now households were facing annual bills from their
local councils in excess of £100. We knew this first charge was
the thin end of the wedge and we went about getting that information
into as many houses as possible.
Long hours were spent going around housing estates dropping in
leaflets talking to people on the doorsteps. I remember spending
evenings walking around one particular suburb with comrades
leafleting for a meeting which we had organised in a local pub. After
distributing thousands of leaflets two people turned up for the
meeting, one from the local newspaper and one a worker in the
council. In Templeogue people had not been involved in campaigns and
there was little history of community based struggle. A sense of
community appeared absent as each person looked after their own
interests. But this area became more organised later on in the
campaign and more people became involved as the council began to drag
people to court. The hard work done a year earlier was rewarded as
the campaign blossomed in the area.
The response was different in other areas of the city. In Firhouse
70 people showed up for the initial meeting. The activists organised
a survey as a good means to develop contacts and as a means to argue
against the charges. Persistent work by activists helped raise the
awareness of the issue. As people became aware of the campaign more
and more became involved.
On September 24th a conference was held and this gave rise to the
Federation of Dublin Anti-Water Charges Campaigns. Councillor Joe
Higgins (Militant Labour) was elected Chairperson of the campaign.
Gregor Kerr, a member of the WSM, was elected secretary of the
campaign. We prepared and built for a march which took place in
November 1994. Local meetings were held thoughout Dublin and they
were generally well attended. A march took place in the city centre
and over 500 people protested at the implementation of this double
taxation. The campaign was by now well and truly alive and we were
building all the time by raising the issue where we could. Over the
course of late 1994/early 1995 nearly every house in Fingal and South
Dublin had received a leaflet from the campaign.
Ambush in the Night
By early December '94, South Dublin County Council had had enough
of our campaign. People weren't paying the bill fast enough for their
liking so they decided to up the ante and declared that if people
didn't pay their outstanding bills within a certain number of days
cut-offs would commence. The councils were now resorting to the
tactics of the school yard bully by their use of threatening language
in letters and ultimately with the threat of cutting off people's
water supply.
All the activists raced into action. There were stake-outs at the
water inspectors' houses. We would follow them around to ensure that
they didn't attempt any cut off under the cover of the night.
Clondalkin people organised their own cars to patrol around that
area. CB radios were installed in the cars so that we were in
constant communication with each other as we monitored the movements
of the men who would try to cut people's water off. One house in
Tallaght was turned into a virtual Head Quarters for the campaign.
The phone calls kept flooding in. Communities learned to be vigilant
of the blue Dublin Water Works vans and were very wary when they came
into the estates. Children playing football on the park were told to
knock on the doors when they saw such vans in the area. Indeed one
van ventured into an estate in Clondalkin village and when the kids
alerted everyone to their presence they hopped back into their van
and drove away rapidly!
I remember freezing one night in a not so new car with a comrade
from Militant Labour and waiting on one water inspector to move. I
got out of the car to answer the call of mother nature behind a bush
and I heard a huge roar from the car. Our man was on the move at
5.00am in the morning, a little early to be starting work we thought.
He was aware that he was being followed so he gave up and went back
home via Crumlin Garda station where he moaned about our close
attention.
All our efforts did not go unnoticed. One South County Dublin
councillor called us "political pygmies." The Evening Herald entitled
us the "water bandits." But the final result from the reports the
campaign received was that 12 houses were disconnected and they were
duly reconnected. The campaign had won the first battle and no house
would be without water for that Christmas.
Little Changes except the Government
Things now suddenly changed because a different game was being
played in the Dáil. The Brendan Smith affair [1] caused the collapse of the Fianna
Fáil and Labour government.
A new government was formed. It still had Labour in it, but this
time their partners in government were Fíne Gael and
Democratic Left. With the change in government came a change in the
tactics used to try to extract the double tax of the water charge. In
the Dáil the Minister for the Environment announced that the
power of the local authorities to disconnect water was to be
'delimited'. When pursued on this issue he said "The Government will
delimit their power to ensure that water supply is not cut off as a
quick reaction but where somebody has the capacity to pay and refuses
to do so the ability to disconnect water supply will remain with the
local authority." [2] As you can see
statements like this did little to clarify the matter for us.
We continued to apply political pressure. We held a picket outside
the Democratic Left conference which was held in Liberty Hall. The
Labour party conference in Limerick was picketed by a number of
activists. Labour members continued to be smug as they passed our
picket and they paid little attention to us but disliked the slogan
"You didn't axe the double tax, now watch your vote collapse." On
that picket we were joined by anti-water charge activists from
Limerick and Galway.
Over the next couple of months nearly a hundred thousand leaflets
were produced and distributed calling on people to maintain a
non-payment policy and explaining the government's pathetic tax-free
allowance scheme. It proposed that if you paid your water charge on
time then you were entitled to claim a tax rebate at 27%. So if your
tax was £150 you were entitled to a maximum rebate of
£40.50. In South County Dublin with the Water Charge at £70
you were entitled to a maximum rebate of £18.90. If you lived in
Cavan you could claim back £40.50, but you'd already paid
£210 for your service charge.
A Law made to be Broken
On 31st March an announcement was made that the councils would
have to bring people to court to obtain an order prior to being able
to disconnect the water. This was what the newspeak word "delimit"
meant in real terms. This was the major concession that was won by
Democratic Left in their negotiations in government! A press
conference was held by the campaign outlining a strategy for dealing
with the threats of court action. All cases would be legally defended
in Court but whatever the outcome, pickets and protests would ensure
that nobody's water was disconnected.
A conference was held in the ATGWU hall in Dublin on May 13th. It
was decided then that during the coming Summer the FDAWCC would
launch a membership drive at £2 per household to help fund the
legal costs which would no doubt be incurred when the councils
finally got around to summonsing people. For the moment they
contented themselves with sending out more threatening letters. The
rate of non-payment remained strong. Over £23 million remained
outstanding from 1994. Successful meetings were held in many areas
with 150 people showing up for one meeting in Tallaght.
Late into the summer final warning notices began to appear
threatening court action. This was the final stage before the real
summonses would appear. The membership campaign was growing quite
rapidly and over 2,500 householders had contributed. The Amalgamated
Transport and General Workers Union very kindly provided the campaign
with an office. An All Dublin Activists Meeting was held in September
with the campaign working on a three pronged attack of non-payment,
defence of non-payers in court, and maximising political pressure.
The first court cases were scheduled for Rathfarnham court on
November 13th 1995. The activists made a large attendance at this
case a priority and on the day over 500 people turned up. They voiced
their support for those people fighting in court and made clear their
opposition to the charges. There were people from all over Dublin, as
well as from other cities and towns thoughout the country. Various
union banners were present. People sang and were in good spirits as
the judge decided to adjourn the cases to the next week.
We never expected justice in court. So the next week we returned
to the court house. That day in Rathfarnham finished with a 500
strong march through the village after the judge threw the council's
cases out of court. RTE (national broadcasting service) finally
decided that the campaign warranted some coverage and the picket
appeared on the afternoon news. Both Joe Higgins and Gregor Kerr were
amongst some of the many people interviewed on the Gay Byrne morning
radio show. After two years in existence the media finally began to
take notice of us.
The local authorities continued to pursue people though the
courts. The council had many legal representatives such as a
solicitor, a barrister and sometimes a senior barrister, as well as
various council officials. They pursued the cases tirelessly but the
campaign's solicitors (F.H. O'Reilly & Co.) contested them on
several grounds. Despite this some disconnections were ordered but
the campaign's tactic of appealing these decisions to the circuit
court ensured that no disconnections could take place. Larry Doran (a
pensioner from the Greenhills area of south Dublin) made an eloquent
speech from the dock of this courtroom in February 1996 when he
highlighted the injustice of this state which grants tax amnesties to
the rich while pursuing pensioners for water charges though the
courts. He said "if the wealthy paid their due taxes, PAYE taxpayers
would not be asked to pay double and I would not be before this
court." The Judge ordered the court to be cleared after the cheering
and clapping that Mr. Doran's speech received. Larry, with the
support of his local campaign, decided not to appeal but instead
challenged the council to come and try to cut his water off. A
demonstration was organised outside his house to show the council who
they would have to deal with if they attempted to cut Larry's water
off. The council decided not to take Larry up on his challenge.
The Councils of Fingal and Dun Laoghaire / Rathdown brought people
to court as well. All members of the campaign were represented. After
6 months of trials up to May 18th 1996, involving 25 appearances by
councils, only 25 disconnection orders were issued against campaign
members. One judge in Swords even invoked the Public Order Act to
deal with a protest outside his courthouse. As William Morris said
back in 1887 "The ruling class seem to want people to use the streets
only to go back and forth to work, making profits for them." In 1996
the judge was still not too keen on the idea of the streets being
used for much else, especially protests.
Death & opportunity
When Brian Lenihan, the Fianna Fail TD for Dublin West died it
became obvious that his seat would be contested and Councillor Joe
Higgins was going to run for the vacant seat as a Militant Labour
Candidate. Joe had always spoken strongly against the water charges
and campaigned tirelessly against them. On 13th January an All Dublin
Activists Meeting was held at which Joe sought the endorsement of the
campaign for his candidacy in the forthcoming by-election.
Members of the WSM present at this meeting spoke strongly against
this proposal. We said that we would much prefer to see the charge
defeated by the working class organising on the streets to show their
opposition. We believe that people have to seize back control over
their own lives and this is not done by electing some official to
fight your corner. Empowerment would come from defeating the combined
forces of the state, the government, and the local authorities, by
organising together and fighting against the imposition of this
charge. Now that we were winning, we just had to keep on pushing
forward with our demands to have this charge abolished. Electing Joe
to sit in the Dáil to argue our case was never going to be
empowering. Joe would have been ignored just as on the local council
his opposition to the charge was ignored. While our arguments were
well received and considered, the decision of the meeting was to
endorse Joe's candidacy.
In the end Councillor Joe Higgins nearly became Joe Higgins TD but
for a few hundred votes. In the end however, Irish politics didn't
vary from the mean and the son Brian Lenihan Junior was elected to
the seat his father had died in.
The Federation of Dublin Anti Water Charges Campaigns held a
conference in May of 1996. Many people were jubilant by the good
showing of Joe Higgins in the Dublin West by-election. For many
activists this was the most media coverage the campaign had received
since its inception. But on the various prongs of attack we were
doing well. Not one member had been disconnected despite the flurry
of court activity and the huge resources spent by the councils
chasing non-payers. The Campaign was still solvent and over 10,000
households had contributed £2 each to it. We decided to continue
to maximise political pressure and the majority of people were in
favour of the campaign running a slate of candidates in the next
general election in order to 'put the frighteners on the
politicians.' Once again we argued against this tactic. The Campaign
was already on winning ground. The courts couldn't operate.
Resistance to payment was still very high with over 50% of the houses
not paying. The Councils were heading into their third year of
setting a rate that would not be paid by the majority of people in
the area. When a campaign of working class resistance to this
injustice is so strong the last thing you need to do is to elect more
politicians whose voices will be lost , soon to be followed by their
principles. Mass resistance had got the campaign into this winning
position and mass resistance would be the murder weapon of the water
charges.
In November and December of 1996 the Campaign increased the
pressure on the local councillors. All sorts of incentive schemes had
been introduced to try and make people pay this double tax and all of
them had failed. The non-payment of water charges had increased and
the councillors knew the imposition of this tax was becoming
impossible. The prospect of a General Election in the Summer of 1997
had all the political parties running for cover. They were running
scared in the face of the massive unpopularity of this form of local
funding. The last turn of the screw came in the shape of Civil
Process cases. In this instance the councils took people to a civil
process court where they would try and get the judge to rule for them
and where they would be entitled to seize assets to the value of the
money owed. This new tactic, which they are continuing to persevere
with, has met with as little success as the previous ones. Again,
people turned up in their hundreds to defend their fellow citizens
from this persecution, and a combination of court protests and legal
defence continues to make life very difficult for the councils.
The water charges were effectively dead in the water (pun
intended). They had become uncontrollable and largely uncollectable.
Further demonstrations were held outside local council meetings where
they tried to strike an estimate for the following year of how much
they would seek from the people. A march was held in the city centre
which attracted a good attendance. The message was to stand firm and
we would definitely see victory. Protest phone calls bombarded the
local councillors. Massive public meetings were held. 500 people
attended such a meeting in Baldoyle in late November. Finally, on
December 19th 1996 the Minister for the Environment announced that
the Water Charge was going to be replaced by a new system whereby the
road tax collected in each area would be the source for local council
funding. Of course he neglected to mention that his hand was forced
in this change of policy.
The working class people of Dublin had organised, rallied and won
an important victory. Double taxation was over and this is due to the
policy of mass resistance, organisation and direct action. The
political establishment had once again thought they could exploit the
working class for yet more money. But this time they had their noses
bloodied. The fight is not over but the victory is certainly ours. In
time to come we should remember this victory and how it was won
because the politicians will not be long before they come up with a
new method to exploit us while they leave the rich to get richer. We
must remember that direct action and mass resistance destroyed their
best laid plan this time and be ready to employ these tactics again
when they unveil their new tricks.
Footnotes
1 The Brendan Smith affair brought about the collapse of this
Government. The Attorney General's office took an exceedingly long
time to get extradition papers prepared so that Father Brendan Smith
could be extradited and prosecuted for child abuse. It led to the
resignation of Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach and the formation of a
new government (without an election).
2 Quote taken from minutes of the Dáil as Minister Howlin
answered a question.
